Why is it easier to hurt the ones you love the most?

In the middle of America’s Heartland, a small town in Indiana named Corehart sat. People boasted of its talent–a contrast to its small size–because everything made there didn’t just come from the townsfolk’s hands, it came from their soul. They kept their talents, dreams, heartaches, and skills in small boxes the size of a novella. These heart boxes they carried in satchels, bags, backpacks, suitcases, compartments, or even woolen scarves (in the case of Mrs. Felidae). Each white picket fence was built by the Barkenn family, who kept their carved wooden heart boxes in their utility belts so they could grab their next chisel, gouge, or handsaw. The Sapphira family kept theirs in small silver ornate chests, so they could pull out the correct gem to finish adorning the chandelier for the theater hall. The Crescendo family would entertain Corehart with concerts, playing on the instruments pulled from their porcelain, music box shaped-hearts.

Sophie and Melody met when Melody knocked over a vase filled with petunias at her father’s last concert. Melody had been performing along with him, of course, by trying to sing an operetta out in the lobby (her mother had not been too keen on the noise). She’d swung her arms to the heavens as the growing, wobbling notes burst from her throat. Then, she stepped into a spin, twirling along with such a flurry that she bumped into the mahogany table that held the fated petunias. Sophie, who had been quietly reorganizing another vase of flowers, jumped at the crash. She helped Melody clean up the shards, and after a scolding from Melody’s mother, the duo scampered outside the small theater—out onto the dirt road worn by bicycle tracks and boot-prints. The road sliced the football-field-sized town in half, and here the girls danced to the faint violin music echoing from the theater. Melody tried to sing again with her screeching voice while Sophie clapped along as her audience. To cement their friendship, Sophie gifted Melody a budding sunflower from her heart box, a small greenhouse-shaped chest she kept in a yellow satchel at her side. Melody, in turn, gave Sophie music from hers, a round glass music box with a small violin player on top. Melody set the pink box down and played “Ring Around the Rosie.” The girls locked hands and spun, kicking up dust and leaving new shoe prints. Their laughter formed a new chorus.

Sophie grew, slow, quiet, and steady like the plants she tended to. She took her time when talking to her friend, and was one of the lucky few who could keep up with Melody’s barrage of Allegro Tempo talking. Melody, in contrast, burst into moods that lasted a note or two, then faded away: she gave a spark of light to Sophie’s soil. Sophie would visit Melody’s house more because Sophie’s parents would shout at each other so loud that the plants on Sophie’s windowsill would quiver and wilt. Melody lived in a small, purple-painted house with a slightly crooked door and very clean windows. The girls would play with Melody’s rabbit, Clef, or Melody would write music. She would practice the new songs on the violin her father gave her as a birthday present, and her heart box’s violinist played along with her. Sophie would not sing along, but she would listen, and that was enough for her.

While Melody practiced in the backyard, Sophie would pull sunflower seeds or mulch from her heart box and add to a small garden she created there, like her grandfather taught her. When Melody took breaks from her music, Sophie taught her how to make mud pies by mixing the best mulch to help the pies hold their shape longest. Melody tried bringing one into the house to ask her mother if they could sell them, but when her mother pointed out that they would leave stains on the carpet, the girls settled for a lemonade stand. Melody sang and played a jingle with her music box violinist, while Sophie would shyly wave and glance towards Aspen Barkenn, the boy across the road.

The girls kept busy to avoid the broken, disjointed sounds of Melody’s father’s coughing, or his heavy steps creaking the floorboards of the house, weaker and weaker. His fingers had grown too swollen to play his violin. Sophie heard the town mention something called ‘CHF’. When she went home to the flower shop and hid in her bedroom, she heard her mother talk with her grandfather in hushed tones, and the word ‘separation’ flew from her mother’s thorny tongue.

At the Corehart annual Summer picnic, while the adults spoke over food, Sophie and Melody ran down to the creek at the edge of town. They wanted to escape the hushed anger whispered between Sophie’s parents, and the never-ending coughing of Melody’s father. Her mother had to feed him because his fingers could not pick up the plastic white utensils. The friends splashed in the creek and skipped stones. Melody would tease Sophie about Aspen, the quiet boy who brought Sophie newly carved wooden handles for her trowels. Sophie would only blush and look for smooth stones for her garden. When Aspen and Sophie grew old enough to date, Melody’s song remained just as loud and supportive, even though she yearned for a duet of her own.

Melody crafted new songs and Sophie’s flowers took up more than half of Melody’s backyard. But Sophie kept a bigger dream now growing in her greenhouse. Even when her parents took their screams and left Sophie with her grandfather, she kept faithfully tending to that dream. Melody played Sophie an honest, heart-warming Sonata during her parent’s absent silence, but Melody tended to her father too; she helped him take his pills of Olmesartan and Benazepril while her mother took on more teaching work. The small town gathered around the two girls as well, bringing gifts to help: the Barkenn family made a new fence for Sophie’s grandfather’s flower shop, and the Sapphira family crafted Melody’s mother a new necklace when the clasp on the old one fell off.

Then one day, the heartstrings of Melody’s father were silenced. The music that poured from Melody slowed to an occasional dull, hollow strain once every minute. Sophie gathered every sunflower she kept in her greenhouse, except for the largest one, and gave them to her friend that day; even then, it took years for Melody’s bouncing, clear song to burst forth again. She clung to Sophie’s side like a vine to a trellis. By that time, Aspen had gone off to college, and Sophie kept writing letters to him and other colleges to fuel that sunflower dream. Her grandfather encouraged her, rumbling,

“It will be good to get an education and get outta here. It’s a small town, Pumpkin, and you need room to grow.”

“What…about Melody?” She whispered.

“You can write to each other, and I’m sure they’ll have telephones. She should understand. When are you going to tell her?”

Sophie’s lips quirked into a small, shaky smile, tentative as a new sprout. “Tomorrow.”

She rode her bicycle to Melody’s house the next day, and the two girls spent the time playing Scrabble, watering the garden in Melody’s backyard, and listening to Melody practicing a song from her violin. The girls laughed and compared music writing to gardening as they washed dishes after dinner. Then, Melody followed Sophie outside to her bicycle to say goodbye. They hugged each other, then Sophie pulled out her heart box from her satchel. The sun glinted off of the tiny glass dome filled with all different types of sunflowers. Some were tiny with only five petals, barely budding, hopes still hidden, and some bloomed oranges, maroons, yellows, and magentas with realized contentment. Sophie unclasped the top and displayed an almost-blooming sunset orange sunflower rooted in the center of it, bigger than the others and quivering with untapped potential.

“I’m…hoping to go to…Burrow University. It’s…one of the best Botany colleges, and Aspen’s going too…I’ve just been accepted.”

Melody went stiff. The music from her heart box fumbled as the glass violinist stumbled off of her perch. Then it deepened, darkened in melody, and sped up. The song crashed to a finish in a loud ringing “sting”. Melody’s hands and fingers flexed like talons.

“No!” Melody lurched forwards and grabbed the budding sunflower by its stalk. Sophie froze, mouth hung agape. Melody’s grip on the stalk tightened.

“So that’s it?! You’re just going to up and leave me?! After everything we’ve been through?”

Sophie’s eyes watered, and she stammered, “Wha-Melody no! Please let go!”

“You’re so selfish! I thought you were my friend!” Melody screamed back and tugged on the flower. Sophie yelped and tried to tug her heart box back. Both girls strained, caught in a tug of war where neither gave an inch and both demanded complete understanding. With a cry, Melody pulled the flower free and tugged the box in the process. Sophie screamed. The greenhouse shattered against the dirt road. The music fell silent. The sunflower fell from Melody’s hand. Its frail petals lay scattered around it, sparks from a dying star. Both girls stared at the broken heart box, ogling it, questioning why something so small and bright could be so fragile.

“Oh god…Sophie…”

Sophie stooped and picked up each centimeter-wide sliver of glass, piece by piece. When she winced at a new cut on her hand, Melody knelt too and started picking up some pieces.

“Go home, Melody.”

Melody tensed at the dead tone from her friend. “Sophie, let me hel-”

“Go. Home.”

Melody’s face contorted in anguish and her violinist started playing again, a soft, gossamer tone on the verge of breaking. “Sophie ple-”

“-Go away!” Sophie screamed, weeds sprouting from the fallen greenhouse dirt, thorns shooting from her mouth. Melody leaped to her feet, then turned and left, leaving Sophie to deal with her shattered heart.

Sophie went back to the flower shop, each piece painstakingly gathered and hidden in her satchel. Her grandfather was already asleep, so she passed her room and went into what used to be her parent’s room. She maneuvered around the dusty furniture and old, rusty gardening equipment to reach a pile of old newspapers. She sorted through them until she got to the bottom, and pulled out a blood-red leather suitcase. She went to her bathroom and opened it up. She took out a small scalpel, a stitching kit, and a silver compartment the size of her fist. It was a simple operation, done by many in the town: Sophie hollowed out a small part of her chest and placed the silver, protective compartment inside, then she took the shards of her heart and glued them to the inside of the box, like a stained glass window. She sewed the box into place, arranged the dirt and wilting flowers in it as best she could, then shut the clasp. She had learned this from watching her parents do it, piece by piece, transferring their heart box deeper into themselves, before they finally uprooted and split. She only opened it to water the flowers in the morning, but it did nothing to keep them healthy. She polished each glass piece, but they did not sparkle as they once did in the sun.

The flowers in Melody’s backyard began to wither. No songs flew to her mind. Melody started working at the convenience store alongside giving music lessons to help her mother make ends meet. Sophie barricaded herself in her room, packing and repacking her trowel, hedge clippers, and toothbrush into a green and yellow suitcase. They saw each other when Melody was working at the cash register nine days later. Melody brightened and waved when Sophie came to buy pencils. Sophie only glanced at her, plastered on a thin smile, gave her some cash for the pencils, and left. Melody couldn’t follow her.

The phone rang every day in Sophie’s home, calls from Melody asking to hang out and saying she loved and missed her. She never came to visit the shop itself. It was only when Sophie came again to the convenience store and Melody asked her to come over for dinner did Sophie agree. Sophie thought it would be rude to run out of the store. So, Sophie ate dinner at Melody’s house, mind dull with pain while brambles and weeds scratched at the door of her heart.

Melody carried the conversation for the both of them, her music swaying and rattling away like a harp with its chords tuned too tight. Melody asked Sophie to join her outside after they finished eating, and she obliged, silent. When they went outside, the flowers in the small garden lay dead. Shriveled up husks. Melody jolted and turned her imploring gaze to Sophie, but Sophie wordlessly pressed a hand to her chest, over the closed compartment, and asked to be excused because it was getting late. Melody offered a hug, and Sophie accepted without returning it. Neither slept that night.

Sophie’s grandfather tended faithfully to the shop, selling bouquets and dissuading gossiping customers. He encouraged Sophie to speak to her friend, but she only shook her head and kept molding bread dough into manageable lumps to bake. The calls stopped the day Sophie finished packing. She crossed off another day on the calendar and noted with relief that there were three more days until she would drive up to college. Then she noticed the date. It was the anniversary of Melody’s father’s death.

The compartment in her chest rattled. She felt petals brushing the door. They drifted down into her stomach and welled up in her throat. She trod downstairs, downed a glass of water, then took her green bicycle to the graveyard. She locked her bicycle to the fence, then stepped carefully when she entered. Little carved wooden figurines rested on tombstones for the Barkenn family, and the Sapphira family had their headstones inlaid with gems that sat dim in the stone from the cloudy day. Sophie passed her grandmother’s, still sprouting peonies from the dirt. Even when gone, the gifts and impact from each heart box carried on.

The faint dull, pleading strings of a violin floated through the air. Sophie hesitated, then followed the noise. Another tombstone stood, newer and cleaner than the others, untouched by moss. The song from the violin echoed around the tombstone engraved with musical notes. Melody sat on her heels in front of it, her heart box held out, her violinist still playing the same weak song.

Roots sprouted from Sophie’s feet and she halted five feet away. Brambles began to sprout from the ground and crawl up her legs. They pierced her jeans and pricked her skin. Shriveled petals gathered in her throat. Sophie could swallow them back and leave. Melody hadn’t noticed her yet. Her flowers would keep shriveling, she would leave for college, and maybe the hurt would stop. No more talks until three in the morning about the nuances of Chopin’s music, or which mulch was the healthiest for tomatoes. Melody would be gone.

Melody’s song wavered and fell silent. Sophie swallowed, strained, then broke free from the brambles and took a step forward. Melody looked up at her with bloodshot eyes and watched silently as Sophie knelt next to her in the dirt. Only the sounds of the violin floated faintly in the breeze.

Sophie felt another rustle in her chest, and she reached inside and opened the door. Small, budding sunflowers sprouted up from the withered remains of fallen petals. She scooped out one, careful not to injure the roots, then she began planting it in the grave dirt. When she reached back in for another, more blooming petals than she expected brushed her hand. She kept uprooting and planting, over and over, until sunflowers blanketed the grave. She still had more left, more than enough.

A faint tune started up, stumbling its way toward life. Melody’s face scrunched up and she choked out a sob. She brushed one of the sunflowers with the tips of her fingers, then stuttered out a quiet,

“Sophie, I’m so sorry.” Melody gripped her music box tighter and sobbed out, “I just didn’t want you to leave me like he did.”

Her song burst into a dirge of flurried despair. The flowers bloomed, a tiny sun on the cloudy day, and Sophie placed a hand on Melody’s arm. Melody cried, tears pouring from her eyes and raining down on the tiny garden. Sophie pulled up her sleeve and started wiping the water off of Melody’s cheeks and nose. After a long moment, Melody sniffled, then unclasped and opened up her heart box. She pulled out a singular sunflower seed and showed it to Sophie.

“Here…it fell into my boot when…we were arguing.”

Sophie’s compartment rattled, the shards softened and melded together. She took it without breathing, then tenderly placed it inside and covered it with dirt. She choked out,

“I’m sorry too. I…was just going to leave you—” her eyes watered “—without saying goodbye. I…I swear I’m gonna come back, once me and Aspen graduate, my grandad said we could…run the store and—” she choked up, then finally blurted “—I’m sorry Melody.”

Melody broke down weeping and Sophie hugged her tight. The music reached a crescendo and flowers broke the compartment door and poured forth.